"Right as right could be, Mother," he admitted. "Your figgers wasa few hundred thousand out of the way, maybe, but barrin' that youwas perfectly right."

"Well, I'm glad to hear you say so for once in your life. Albert,"holding up the envelope, "do you know what this is?"

Albert, much puzzled, admitted that he did not. His grandmotherput down the book, opened the envelope and took from it a slip ofpaper.

"And can you guess what THIS is?" she asked. Albert could notguess.

"It's a check, that's what it is. It's the first six months'royalties, that's what they call 'em, on that beautiful book ofyours. And how much do you suppose 'tis?"

Albert shook his head. "Twenty-five dollars?" he suggestedjokingly.

"Twenty-five dollars! It's over twenty-five HUNDRED dollars. It'stwenty-eight hundred and forty-three dollars and sixty-five cents,that's what it is. Think of it! Almost three thousand dollars!And Zelotes prophesied that 'twouldn't be more than--"

Her husband held up his hand. "Sh-sh! Sh-sh, Mother," he said."Don't get started on what I prophesied or we won't be through tilldoomsday. I'll give in right off that I'm the worst prophet sincethe feller that h'isted the 'Fair and Dry' signal the day aforeNoah's flood begun. You see," he explained, turning to Albert,"your grandma figgered out that you'd probably clear about half amillion on that book of poetry, Al. I cal'lated 'twan't likely tobe much more'n a couple of hundred thousand, so--"

"Why, Zelotes Snow! You said--"

"Yes, yes. So I did, Mother, so I did. You was right and I waswrong. Twenty-eight hundred ain't exactly a million, Al, but it'sa darn sight more than I ever cal'lated you'd make from that book.Or 'most anybody else ever made from any book, fur's that goes," headded, with a shake of the head. "I declare, I--I don't understandit yet. And a poetry book, too! Who in time BUYS 'em all? Eh?"

Albert was looking at the check and the royalty statement.

"So this is why I couldn't get any satisfaction from the publisher,"he observed. "I wrote him two or three times about my royalties,and he put me off each time. I began to think there weren't any."

Captain Zelotes smiled. "That's your grandma's doin's," heobserved. "The check came to us a good while ago, when we thoughtyou was--was--well, when we thought--"

"Yes. Surely, I understand," put in Albert, to help him out.

"Yes. That's when 'twas. And Mother, she was so proud of it,because you'd earned it, Al, that she kept it and kept it, showin'it to all hands and--and so on. And then when we found out youwasn't--that you'd be home some time or other--why, then shewouldn't let me put it in the bank for you because she wanted togive it to you herself. That's what she said was the reason. Ipresume likely the real one was that she wanted to flap it in myface every time she crowed over my bad prophesyin', which was aboutthree times a day and four on Sundays."

"Zelotes Snow, the idea!"

"All right, Mother, all right. Anyhow, she got me to write yourpublisher man and ask him not to give you any satisfaction aboutthose royalties, so's she could be the fust one to paralyze youwith 'em. And," with a frank outburst, "if you ain't paralyzed,Al, I own up that _I_ am. Three thousand poetry profits beats me._I_ don't understand it."

His wife sniffed. "Of course you don't," she declared. "ButAlbert does. And so do I, only I think it ought to have been everand ever so much more. Don't you, yourself, Albert?"

The author of The Lances of Dawn was still looking at the statementof its earnings.

"But you said it would be twenty-five cents, not fifteen,"protested Olive. "In your letter when the book was first talkedabout you said so."

Albert smiled. "Did I?" he observed. "Well, I said a good manythings in those days, I'm afraid. Fifteen cents for a first book,especially a book of verse, is fair enough, I guess. But eighteenthousand SOLD! That is what gets me."

"You mean you think it ought to be a lot more. So do I, Albert,and so does Rachel. Why, we like it a lot better than we do DavidHarum. That was a nice book, but it wasn't lovely poetry likeyours. And David Harum sold a million. Why shouldn't yours sellas many? Only eighteen thousand--why are you lookin' at me sofunny?"

Her grandson rose to his feet. "Let's let well enough alone,Grandmother," he said. "Eighteen thousand will do, thank you.I'm like Grandfather, I'm wondering who on earth bought them."

Mrs. Snow was surprised and a little troubled.

"Why, Albert," she said, "you act kind of--kind of queer, seems tome. You talk as if your poetry wasn't beautiful. You know it is.You used to say it was, yourself."

He interrupted her. "Did I, Grandmother?" he said. "All right,then, probably I did. Let's walk about the old place a little. Iwant to see it all. By George, I've been dreaming about it longenough!"

There were callers that afternoon, friends among the townsfolk, andmore still after supper. It was late--late for South Harniss, thatis--when Albert, standing in the doorway of the bedroom he nor theyhad ever expected he would occupy again, bade his grandparents goodnight. Olive kissed him again and again and, speech failing her,hastened away down the hall. Captain Zelotes shook his hand,opened his mouth to speak, shut it again, repeated both operations,and at last with a brief, "Well, good night, Al," hurried after hiswife. Albert closed the door, put his lamp upon the bureau, andsat down in the big rocker.

In a way the night was similar to that upon which he had firstentered that room. It had ceased raining, but the wind, as on thatfirst night, was howling and whining about the eaves, the shuttersrattled and the old house creaked and groaned rheumatically. Itwas not as cold as on that occasion, though by no means warm. Heremembered how bare and comfortless he had thought the room. Nowit looked almost luxurious. And he had been homesick, or fanciedhimself in that condition. Compared to the homesickness he hadknown during the past eighteen months that youthful seizure seemedcontemptible and quite without excuse. He looked about the roomagain, looked long and lovingly. Then, with a sigh of content,drew from his pocket the two letters which had lain upon thesitting-room table when he arrived, opened them and began to read.

Madeline wrote, as always, vivaciously and at length. The maternalcensorship having been removed, she wrote exactly as she felt. Shecould scarcely believe he was really going to be at home when hereceived this, at home in dear, quaint, queer old South Harniss.Just think, she had not seen the place for ever and ever so long,not for over two years. How were all the funny, odd people wholived there all the time? Did he remember how he and she used togo to church every Sunday and sit through those dreadful, DREADFULsermons by that prosy old minister just as an excuse for meetingeach other afterward? She was SO sorry she could not have beenthere to welcome her hero when he stepped from the train. If ithadn't been for Mother's poor nerves she surely would have been.He knew it, didn't he? Of course he did. But she should see himsoon "because Mother is planning already to come back to New Yorkin a few weeks and then you are to run over immediately and make usa LONG visit. And I shall be so PROUD of you. There are lots ofArmy fellows down here now, officers for the most part. So wedance and are very gay--that is, the other girls are; I, being anengaged young lady, am very circumspect and demure, of course.Mother carries The Lances about with her wherever she goes, to teasand such things, and reads aloud from it often. Captain Blanchard,he is one of the family's officer friends, is crazy about yourpoetry, dear. He thinks it WONDERFUL. You know what _I_ think ofit, don't you, and when I think that _I_ actually helped you, orplayed at helping you write some of it!

"And I am WILD to see your war cross. Some of the officers herehave them--the crosses, I mean--but not many. Captain Blanchardhas the military medal, and he is almost as modest about it as youare about your decoration. I don't see how you CAN be so modest.If _I_ had a Croix de Guerre I should want EVERY ONE to know aboutit. At the tea dance the other afternoon there was a British majorwho--"

And so on. The second letter was really a continuation of thefirst. Albert read them both and, after the reading was finished,sat for some time in the rocking chair, quite regardless of thetime and the cold, thinking. He took from his pocketbook aphotograph, one which Madeline had sent him months before, whichhad reached him while he lay in the French hospital after hisremoval from the German camp. He looked at the pretty face in thephotograph. She looked just as he remembered her, almost exactlyas she had looked more than two years before, smiling, charming,carefree. She had not, apparently, grown older, those age-longmonths had not changed her. He rose and regarded his ownreflection in the mirror of the bureau. He was surprised, as hewas constantly being surprised, to see that he, too, had notchanged greatly in personal appearance.

He walked about the room. His grandmother had told him that hisroom was just as he had left it. "I wouldn't change it, Albert,"she said, "even when we thought you--you wasn't comin' back. Icouldn't touch it, somehow. I kept thinkin', 'Some day I will.Pretty soon I MUST.' But I never did, and now I'm so glad."

He wandered back to the bureau and pulled open the upper drawers.In those drawers were so many things, things which he had keptthere, either deliberately or because he was too indolent todestroy them. Old dance cards, invitations, and a bundle ofphotographs, snapshots. He removed the rubber band from the bundleand stood looking them over. Photographs of school fellows, ofpicnic groups, of girls. Sam Thatcher, Gertie Kendrick--and HelenKendall. There were at least a dozen of Helen.

One in particular was very good. From that photograph the face ofHelen as he had known it four years before looked straight up intohis--clear-eyed, honest, a hint of humor and understanding andcommon-sense in the gaze and at the corners of the lips. He lookedat the photograph, and the photograph looked up at him. He had notseen her for so long a time. He wondered if the war had changedher as it had changed him. Somehow he hoped it had not. Changedid not seem necessary in her case.

There had been no correspondence between them since her letterwritten when she heard of his enlistment. He had not replied tothat because he knew Madeline would not wish him to do so. Hewondered if she ever thought of him now, if she remembered theiradventure at High Point light. He had thought of her often enough.In those days and nights of horror in the prison camp and hospitalhe had found a little relief, a little solace in lying with closedeyes and summoning back from memory the things of home and thefaces of home. And her face had been one of these. Her face andthose of his grandparents and Rachel and Laban, and visions of theold house and the rooms--they were the substantial things to clingto and he had clung to them. They WERE home. Madeline--ah! yes,he had longed for her and dreamed of her, God knew, but Madeline,of course, was different.

He snapped the rubber band once more about the bundle of photographs,closed the drawer and prepared for bed.

For the two weeks following his return home he had a thoroughlygood time. It was a tremendous comfort to get up when he pleased,to eat the things he liked, to do much or little or nothing at hisown sweet will. He walked a good deal, tramping along the beach inthe blustering wind and chilly sunshine and enjoying every breathof the clean salt air. He thought much during those solitarywalks, and at times, at home in the evenings, he would fall tomusing and sit silent for long periods. His grandmother wastroubled.

"Don't it seem to you, Zelotes," she asked her husband, "as ifAlbert was kind of discontented or unsatisfied these days? He'sso--so sort of fidgety. Talks like the very mischief for tenminutes and then don't speak for half an hour. Sits still for along stretch and then jumps up and starts off walkin' as if he wascrazy. What makes him act so? He's kind of changed from what heused to be. Don't you think so?"

The captain patted her shoulder. "Don't worry, Mother," he said."Al's older than he was and what he's been through has made himolder still. As for the fidgety part of it, the settin' down andjumpin' up and all that, that's the way they all act, so far as Ican learn. Elisha Warren, over to South Denboro, tells me hisnephew has been that way ever since he got back. Don't fret,Mother, Al will come round all right."

"I didn't know but he might be anxious to see--to see her, youknow."

"Her? Oh, you mean the Fosdick girl. Well, he'll be goin' to seeher pretty soon, I presume likely. They're due back in New York'most any time now, I believe. . . . Oh, hum! Why in timecouldn't he--"

"Couldn't he what, Zelotes?"

"Oh, nothin', nothin'."

The summons came only a day after this conversation. It came inthe form of another letter from Madeline and one from Mrs. Fosdick.They were, so the latter wrote, back once more in their city home,her nerves, thank Heaven, were quite strong again, and they wereexpecting him, Albert, to come on at once. "We are all dying tosee you," wrote Mrs. Fosdick. "And poor, dear Madeline, of course,is counting the moments."

"Stay as long as you feel like, Al," said the captain, when told ofthe proposed visit. "It's the dull season at the office, anyhow,and Labe and I can get along first-rate, with Issy to superintend.Stay as long as you want to, only--"

"Only what, Grandfather?"

"Only don't want to stay too long. That is, don't fall in lovewith New York so hard that you forget there is such a place asSouth Harniss."

Albert smiled. "I've been in places farther away than New York,"he said, "and I never forgot South Harniss."

"Um-hm. . . . Well, I shouldn't be surprised if that was so. Butyou'll have better company in New York than you did in some ofthose places. Give my regards to Fosdick. So-long, Al."

CHAPTER XVI

The Fosdick car was at the Grand Central Station when theKnickerbocker Limited pulled in. And Madeline, a wonderfullyfurred and veiled and hatted Madeline, was waiting there behind therail as he came up the runway from the train. It was amazing thefact that it was really she. It was more amazing still to kiss herthere in public, to hold her hand without fear that some one mightsee. To--

"Shall I take your bags, sir?"

It was the Fosdick footman who asked it. Albert started guiltily.Then he laughed, realizing that the hand-holding and the rest wereno longer criminal offenses. He surrendered his luggage to theman. A few minutes later he and Madeline were in the limousine,which was moving rapidly up the Avenue. And Madeline was askingquestions and he was answering and--and still it was all a dream.It COULDN'T be real.

It was even more like a dream when the limousine drew up before thedoor of the Fosdick home and they entered that home together. Forthere was Mrs. Fosdick, as ever majestic, commanding, awe-inspiring,the same Mrs. Fosdick who had, in her letter to his grandfather,written him down a despicable, underhanded sneak, here was that sameMrs. Fosdick--but not at all the same. For this lady was smilingand gracious, welcoming him to her home, addressing him by hisChristian name, treating him kindly, with almost motherly tenderness.Madeline's letters and Mrs. Fosdick's own letters received duringhis convalescence abroad had prepared him, or so he had thought, forsome such change. Now he realized that he had not been prepared atall. The reality was so much more revolutionary than theanticipation that he simply could not believe it.

But it was not so very wonderful if he had known all the facts andhad been in a frame of mind to calmly analyze them. Mrs. FletcherFosdick was a seasoned veteran, a general who had planned andfought many hard campaigns upon the political battlegrounds ofwomen's clubs and societies of various sorts. From the majority ofthose campaigns she had emerged victorious, but her experiences indefeat had taught her that the next best thing to winning is tolose gracefully, because by so doing much which appears to be lostmay be regained. For Albert Speranza, bookkeeper and would-be poetof South Harniss, Cape Cod, she had had no use whatever as aprospective son-in-law. Even toward a living Albert Speranza, heroand newspaper-made genius, she might have been cold. But when thathero and genius was, as she and every one else supposed, safely andsatisfactorily dead and out of the way, she had seized theopportunity to bask in the radiance of his memory. She had talkedAlbert Speranza and read Albert Speranza and boasted of AlbertSperanza's engagement to her daughter before the world. Now thatthe said Albert Speranza had been inconsiderate enough to "comealive again," there was but one thing for her to do--that is, tomake the best of it. And when Mrs. Fletcher Fosdick made the bestof anything she made the very best.

"It doesn't make any difference," she told her husband, "whether hereally is a genius or whether he isn't. We have said he is and nowwe must keep on saying it. And if he can't earn his salt by hiswritings--which he probably can't--then you must fix it in some wayso that he can make-believe earn it by something else. He isengaged to Madeline, and we have told every one that he is, so hewill have to marry her; at least, I see no way to prevent it."

"Humph!" grunted Fosdick. "And after that I'll have to supportthem, I suppose."

"Probably--unless you want your only child to starve."

"Well, I must say, Henrietta--"

"You needn't, for there is nothing more TO say. We're in it and,whether we like it or not, we must make the best of it. To doanything now except appear joyful about it would be to makeourselves perfectly ridiculous. We can't do that, and you knowit."

Her husband still looked everything but contented.

"So far as the young fellow himself goes," he said, "I like him,rather. I've talked with him only once, of course, and then he andI weren't agreeing exactly. But I liked him, nevertheless. If hewere anything but a fool poet I should be more reconciled."

He was snubbed immediately. "THAT," declared Mrs. Fosdick, withdecision, "is the only thing that makes him possible."

So Mrs. Fosdick's welcome was whole-handed if not whole-hearted.And her husband's also was cordial and intimate. The only memberof the Fosdick household who did not regard the guest with favorwas Googoo. That aristocratic bull-pup was still irreconcilablyhostile. When Albert attempted to pet him he appeared to beplanning to devour the caressing hand, and when rebuked by hismistress retired beneath a davenport, growling ominously. Evenwhen ignominiously expelled from the room he growled and castlonging backward glances at the Speranza ankles. No, Googoo didnot dissemble; Albert was perfectly sure of his standing inGoogoo's estimation.

Dinner that evening was a trifle more formal than he had expected,and he was obliged to apologize for the limitations of hiswardrobe. His dress suit of former days he had found much toodilapidated for use. Besides, he had outgrown it.

"I thought I was thinner," he said, "and I think I am. But I musthave broadened a bit. At any rate, all the coats I left behindwon't do at all. I shall have to do what Captain Snow, mygrandfather, calls 'refit' here in New York. In a day or two Ihope to be more presentable."

Mrs. Fosdick assured him that it was quite all right, really.Madeline asked why he didn't wear his uniform. "I was dying to seeyou in it," she said. "Just think, I never have."

Albert laughed. "You have been spared," he told her. "Mine wasnot a triumph, so far as fit was concerned. Of course, I had acomplete new rig when I came out of the hospital, but even that wasnot beautiful. It puckered where it should have bulged and bulgedwhere it should have been smooth."

Madeline professed not to believe him.

"Nonsense!" she declared. "I don't believe it. Why, almost allthe fellows I know have been in uniform for the past two years andtheirs fitted beautifully."

"But they were officers, weren't they, and their uniforms werecustom made."

"Why, I suppose so. Aren't all uniforms custom made?"

Her father laughed. "Scarcely, Maddie," he said. "The privateshave their custom-made by the mile and cut off in chunks for theindividual. That was about it, wasn't it, Speranza?"

"Just about, sir."

Mrs. Fosdick evidently thought that the conversation was taking arather low tone. She elevated it by asking what his thoughts werewhen taken prisoner by the Germans. He looked puzzled.

"Thoughts, Mrs. Fosdick?" he repeated. "I don't know that Iunderstand, exactly. I was only partly conscious and in a gooddeal of pain and my thoughts were rather incoherent, I'm afraid."

"But when you regained consciousness, you know. What were yourthoughts then? Did you realize that you had made the greatsacrifice for your country? Risked your life and forfeited yourliberty and all that for the cause? Wasn't it a great satisfactionto feel that you had done that?"

Albert's laugh was hearty and unaffected. "Why, no," he said. "Ithink what I was realizing most just then was that I had made amiserable mess of the whole business. Failed in doing what I setout to do and been taken prisoner besides. I remember thinking,when I was clear-headed enough to think anything, 'You fool, youspent months getting into this war, and then got yourself out of itin fifteen minutes.' And it WAS a silly trick, too."

Madeline was horrified.

"What DO you mean?" she cried. "Your going back there to rescueyour comrade a silly trick! The very thing that won you your Croixde Guerre?"

"Why, yes, in a way. I didn't save Mike, poor fellow--"

"Mike! Was his name Mike?"

"Yes; Michael Francis Xavier Kelly. A South Boston Mick he was,and one of the finest, squarest boys that ever drew breath. Well,poor Mike was dead when I got to him, so my trip had been fornothing, and if he had been alive I could not have prevented hisbeing taken. As it was, he was dead and I was a prisoner. Sonothing was gained and, for me, personally, a good deal was lost.It wasn't a brilliant thing to do. But," he added apologetically,"a chap doesn't have time to think collectively in such a scrape.And it was my first real scrap and I was frightened half to death,besides."

"Frightened! Why, I never heard anything so ridiculous! What--"

"One moment, Madeline." It was Mrs. Fosdick who interrupted. "Iwant to ask--er--Albert a question. I want to ask him if duringhis long imprisonment he composed--wrote, you know. I should havethought the sights and experiences would have forced one to expressone's self--that is, one to whom the gift of expression was sogenerously granted," she added, with a gracious nod.

Albert hesitated.

"Why, at first I did," he said. "When I first was well enough tothink, I used to try to write--verses. I wrote a good many.Afterwards I tore them up."

"Tore them up!" Both Mrs. and Miss Fosdick uttered this exclamation.

"Why, yes. You see, they were such rot. The things I wanted towrite about, the things _I_ had seen and was seeing, the--thefellows like Mike and their pluck and all that--well, it was alltoo big for me to tackle. My jingles sounded, when I read themover, like tunes on a street piano. _I_ couldn't do it. A geniusmight have been equal to the job, but I wasn't."

Mrs. Fosdick glanced at her husband. There was something ofalarmed apprehension in the glance. Madeline's next remark coveredthe situation. It expressed the absolute truth, so much more ofthe truth than even the young lady herself realized at the time.

"Why, Albert Speranza," she exclaimed, "I never heard you speak ofyourself and your work in that way before. Always--ALWAYS you havehad such complete, such splendid confidence in yourself. You werenever afraid to attempt ANYTHING. You MUST not talk so. Don't youintend to write any more?"

Albert looked at her. "Oh, yes, indeed," he said simply. "That isjust what I do intend to do--or try to do."

That evening, alone in the library, he and Madeline had their firstlong, intimate talk, the first since those days--to him they seemedas far away as the last century--when they walked the South Harnissbeach together, walked beneath the rainbows and dreamed. And nowhere was their dream coming true.

Madeline, he was realizing it as he looked at her, was prettierthan ever. She had grown a little older, of course, a little moremature, but surprisingly little. She was still a girl, a very,very pretty girl and a charming girl. And he--

"What are you thinking about?" she demanded suddenly.

He came to himself. "I was thinking about you," he said. "You arejust as you used to be, just as charming and just as sweet. Youhaven't changed."

She smiled and then pouted.

"I don't know whether to like that or not," she said. "Did youexpect to find me less--charming and the rest?"

"Why, no, of course not. That was clumsy on my part. What I meantwas that--well, it seems ages, centuries, since we were togetherthere on the Cape--and yet you have not changed."

She regarded him reflectively.

"You have," she said.

"Have what?"

"Changed. You have changed a good deal. I don't know whether Ilike it or not. Perhaps I shall be more certain by and by. Nowshow me your war cross. At least you have brought that, even ifyou haven't brought your uniform."

He had the cross in his pocket-book and he showed it to her. Sheenthused over it, of course, and wished he might wear it even whenin citizen's clothes. She didn't see why he couldn't. And it wasSUCH a pity he could not be in uniform. Captain Blanchard hadcalled the evening before, to see Mother about some war charitiesshe was interested in, and he was still in uniform and wearing hisdecorations, too. Albert suggested that probably Blanchard wasstill in service. Yes, she believed he was, but she could not seewhy that should make the difference. Albert had BEEN in service.

He laughed at this and attempted to explain. She seemed to resentthe attempt or the tone.

"I do wish," she said almost pettishly, "that you wouldn't be sosuperior."

He was surprised. "Superior!" he repeated. "Superior! I?Superiority is the very least of my feelings. I--superior! That'sa joke."

And, oddly enough, she resented that even more. "Why is it ajoke?" she demanded. "I should think you had the right to feelsuperior to almost any one. A hero--and a genius! You AREsuperior."

However, the little flurry was but momentary, and she was allsweetness and smiles when she kissed him good night. He was shownto his room by a servant and amid its array of comforts--to him,fresh from France and the camp and his old room at South Harniss,it was luxuriously magnificent--he sat for some time thinking. Histhoughts should have been happy ones, yet they were not entirelyso. This is a curiously unsatisfactory world, sometimes.

The next day he went shopping. Fosdick had given him a card to hisown tailor and Madeline had given him the names of several shopswhere, so she declared, he could buy the right sort of ties andthings. From the tailor's Albert emerged looking a trifle dazed;after a visit to two of the shops the dazed expression was evenmore pronounced. His next visits were at establishments fartherdowntown and not as exclusive. He returned to the Fosdick homefeeling fairly well satisfied with the results achieved. Madeline,however, did not share his satisfaction.

"But Dad sent you to his tailor," she said. "Why in the worlddidn't you order your evening clothes there? And Brett has themost stunning ties. Every one says so. Instead you buy yours at adepartment store. Now why?"

He smiled. "My dear girl," he said, "your father's tailorestimated that he might make me a very passable dress suit for onehundred and seventy-five dollars. Brett's ties were stunning, justas you say, but the prices ranged from five to eight dollars, whichwas more stunning still. For a young person from the country outof a job, which is my condition at present, such things may belooked at but not handled. I can't afford them."

She tossed her head. "What nonsense!" she exclaimed. "You're notout of a job, as you call it. You are a writer and a famouswriter. You have written one book and you are going to write more.Besides, you must have made heaps of money from The Lances. Everyone has been reading it."

When he told her the amount of his royalty check she expressed theopinion that the publisher must have cheated. It ought to havebeen ever and ever so much more than that. Such wonderful poems!

The next day she went to Brett's and purchased a half dozen of themost expensive ties, which she presented to him forthwith.

"There!" she demanded. "Aren't those nicer than the ones youbought at that old department store? Well, then!"

"But, Madeline, I must not let you buy my ties."

"Why not? It isn't such an unheard-of thing for an engaged girl togive her fiance a necktie."

"That isn't the idea. I should have bought ties like those myself,but I couldn't afford them. Now for you to--"

"Nonsense! You talk as if you were a beggar. Don't be so silly."

"But, Madeline--"

"Stop! I don't want to hear it."

She rose and went out of the room. She looked as if she were onthe verge of tears. He felt obliged to accept the gift, but hedisliked the principle of the things as much as ever. When shereturned she was very talkative and gay and chatted all throughluncheon. The subject of the ties was not mentioned again byeither of them. He was glad he had not told her that his new dresssuit was ready-made.

While in France, awaiting his return home, he had purchased a ringand sent it to her. She was wearing it, of course. Compared withother articles of jewelry which she wore from time to time, hisring made an extremely modest showing. She seemed quite unaware ofthe discrepancy, but he was aware of it.

On an evening later in the week Mrs. Fosdick gave a reception."Quite an informal affair," she said, in announcing her intention."Just a few intimate friends to meet Mr. Speranza, that is all.Mostly lovers of literature--discerning people, if I may say so."

The quite informal affair looked quite formidably formal to Albert.The few intimate friends were many, so it seemed to him. There wasstill enough of the former Albert Speranza left in his make-up toprevent his appearing in the least distressed or ill at ease. Hewas, as he had always been when in the public eye, even as far backas the school dancing-classes with the Misses Bradshaw's youngladies, perfectly self-possessed, charmingly polite, absolutelyself-assured. And his good looks had not suffered during his yearsof imprisonment and suffering. He was no longer a handsome boy,but he was an extraordinarily attractive and distinguished man.

Mrs. Fosdick marked his manner and appearance and breathed a sighof satisfaction. Madeline noted them. Her young friends of thesex noted them and whispered and looked approval. What the youngmen thought does not matter so much, perhaps. One of these was theCaptain Blanchard, of whom Madeline had written and spoken. He wasa tall, athletic chap, who looked well in his uniform, and whoseface was that of a healthy, clean-living and clean-thinking youngAmerican. He and Albert shook hands and looked each other over.Albert decided he should like Blanchard if he knew him better. Thecaptain was not talkative; in fact, he seemed rather taciturn.Maids and matrons gushed when presented to the lion of the evening.It scarcely seemed possible that they were actually meeting theauthor of The Lances of Dawn. That wonderful book! Those wonderfulpoems! "How CAN you write them, Mr. Speranza?" "When do your bestinspirations come, Mr. Speranza?" "Oh, if I could write as you do Ishould walk on air." The matron who breathed the last-quotedecstasy was distinctly weighty; the mental picture of her pedestriantrip through the atmosphere was interesting. Albert's hand waspatted by the elderly spinsters, young women's eyes lifted soulfulglances to his.

It was the sort of thing he would have revelled in three or fouryears earlier. Exactly the sort of thing he had dreamed of whenthe majority of the poems they gushed over were written. It wasmuch the same thing he remembered having seen his father undergoin the days when he and the opera singer were together. And hisfather had, apparently, rather enjoyed it. He realized all this--and he realized, too, with a queer feeling that it should be so,that he did not like it at all. It was silly. Nothing he hadwritten warranted such extravagances. Hadn't these people anysense of proportion? They bored him to desperation. The solerelief was the behavior of the men, particularly the middle-aged orelderly men, obviously present through feminine compulsion. Theyseized his hand, moved it up and down with a pumping motion,uttered some stereotyped prevarications about their pleasure atmeeting him and their having enjoyed his poems very much, and thenslid on in the direction of the refreshment room.

And Albert, as he shook hands, bowed and smiled and was charminglyaffable, found his thoughts wandering until they settled uponPrivate Mike Kelly and the picturesque language of the latter whenhe, as sergeant, routed him out for guard duty. Mike had notgushed over him nor called him a genius. He had called him manythings, but not that.

He was glad indeed when he could slip away for a dance withMadeline. He found her chatting gaily with Captain Blanchard, whohad been her most recent partner. He claimed her from the captainand as he led her out to the dance floor she whispered that she wasvery proud of him. "But I DO wish YOU could wear your war cross,"she added.

The quite informal affair was the first of many quite as informallyformal. Also Mrs. Fosdick's satellites and friends of the literaryclubs and the war work societies seized the opportunity to makemuch of the heroic author of The Lances of Dawn. His society wasrequested at teas, at afternoon as well as evening gatherings. Hewould have refused most of these invitations, but Madeline and hermother seemed to take his acceptance for granted; in fact, theyaccepted for him. A ghastly habit developed of asking him to reada few of his own poems on these occasions. "PLEASE, Mr. Speranza.It will be such a treat, and such an HONOR." Usually a particularrequest was made that he read "The Greater Love." Now "The GreaterLove" was the poem which, written in those rapturous days when heand Madeline first became aware of their mutual adoration, wasrefused by one editor as a "trifle too syrupy." To read thatsticky effusion over and over again became a torment. There wereoccasions when if a man had referred to "The Greater Love," itsauthor might have howled profanely and offered bodily violence.But no men ever did refer to "The Greater Love."

On one occasion when a sentimental matron and her gushing daughterhad begged to know if he did not himself adore that poem, if he didnot consider it the best he had ever written, he had answeredfrankly. He was satiated with cake and tea and compliments thatevening and recklessly truthful. "You really wish to know myopinion of that poem?" he asked. Indeed and indeed they reallywished to knew just that thing. "Well, then, I think it's rot," hedeclared. "I loathe it."

Of course mother and daughter were indignant. Their commentsreached Madeline's ear. She took him to task.

"But why did you say it?" she demanded. "You know you don't meanit."

"Yes, I do mean it. It IS rot. Lots of the stuff in that book ofmine is rot. I did not think so once, but I do now. If I had thebook to make over again, that sort wouldn't be included."

She looked at him for a moment as if studying a problem.

"I don't understand you sometimes," she said slowly. "You aredifferent. And I think what you said to Mrs. Bacon and Marian wasvery rude."

Later when he went to look for her he found her seated with CaptainBlanchard in a corner. They were eating ices and, apparently,enjoying themselves. He did not disturb them. Instead he huntedup the offended Bacons and apologized for his outbreak. Theapology, although graciously accepted, had rather wearisomeconsequences. Mrs. Bacon declared she knew that he had not reallymeant what he said.

"I realize how it must be," she declared. "You people oftemperament, of genius, of aspirations, are never quite satisfied,you cannot be. You are always trying, always seeking the higherattainment. Achievements of the past, though to the rest of uswonderful and sublime, are to you--as you say, 'rot.' That is it,is it not?" Albert said he guessed it was, and wandered away,seeking seclusion and solitude. When the affair broke up he foundMadeline and Blanchard still enjoying each other's society. Bothwere surprised when told the hour.

CHAPTER XVII

So the first three weeks of his proposed month's visit passed andthe fourth began. And more and more his feelings of dissatisfactionand uneasiness increased. The reasons for those feelings he foundhard to define. The Fosdicks were most certainly doing their bestto make him comfortable and happy. They were kind--yes, more thankind. Mr. Fosdick he really began to like. Mrs. Fosdick's mannerhad a trace of condescension in it, but as the lady treated allcreation with much the same measure of condescension, he was moreamused than resentful. And Madeline--Madeline was sweet andcharming and beautiful. There was in her manner toward him, or sohe fancied, a slight change, perhaps a change a trifle more markedsince the evening when his expressed opinion of "The Greater Love"had offended her and the Bacons. It seemed to him that she was moreimpatient, more capricious, sometimes almost overwhelming him withattention and tenderness and then appearing to forget him entirelyand to be quite indifferent to his thoughts and opinions. Her moodsvaried greatly and there were occasions when he found it almostimpossible to please her. At these times she took offense when nooffense was intended and he found himself apologizing when, to saythe least, the fault, if there was any, was not more than half his.But she always followed those moods with others of contrition andpenitence and then he was petted and fondled and his forgivenessimplored.

These slight changes in her he noticed, but they troubled himlittle, principally because he was coming to realize the greatchange in himself. More and more that change was forcing itselfupon him. The stories and novels he had read during the firstyears of the war, the stories by English writers in which youngmen, frivolous and inconsequential, had enlisted and fought andemerged from the ordeal strong, purposeful and "made-over"--thosestories recurred to him now. He had paid little attention to the"making-over" idea when he read those tales, but now he was forcedto believe there might be something in it. Certainly something,the three years or the discipline and training and suffering, orall combined, had changed him. He was not as he used to be.Things he liked very much he no longer liked at all. And where,oh where, was the serene self-satisfaction which once was his?

The change must be quite individual, he decided. All soldiers werenot so affected. Take Blanchard, for instance. Blanchard had seenservice, more and quite as hard fighting as he had seen, butBlanchard was, to all appearances, as light-hearted and serene andconfident as ever. Blanchard was like Madeline; he was much thesame now as he had been before the war. Blanchard could dance andtalk small talk and laugh and enjoy himself. Well, so could he, onoccasions, for that matter, if that had been all. But it was notall, or if it was why was he at other times so discontented anduncomfortable? What was the matter with him, anyway?

He drew more and more into his shell and became more quiet and lesstalkative. Madeline, in one of her moods, reproached him for it.

"I do wish you wouldn't be grumpy," she said.

They had been sitting in the library and he had lapsed into a fitof musing, answering her questions with absentminded monosyllables.Now he looked up.

"Grumpy?" he repeated. "Was I grumpy? I beg your pardon."

"You should. You answered every word I spoke to you with a gruntor a growl. I might as well have been talking to a bear."

"Fletcher," she said, "I am inclined to think it is time you andAlbert had a talk concerning the future. A business talk, I mean.I am a little uneasy about him. From some things he has said to merecently I gather that he is planning to earn his living with hispen."

"Well, how else did you expect him to earn it; as bookkeeper forthe South Harniss lumber concern?"

"Don't be absurd. What I mean is that he is thinking of devotinghimself to literature exclusively. Don't interrupt me, please.That is very beautiful and very idealistic, and I honor him for it,but I cannot see Madeline as an attic poet's wife, can you?"

"I can't, and I told you so in the beginning."

"No. Therefore I should take him to one side and tell him of theopening in your firm. With that as a means of keeping his feet onthe ground his brain may soar as it likes, the higher the better."

Mr. Fosdick, as usual, obeyed orders and that afternoon Albert andhe had the "business talk." Conversation at dinner was somewhatstrained. Mr. Fosdick was quietly observant and seemed ratheramused about something. His wife was dignified and her mannertoward her guest was inclined to be abrupt. Albert's appetite waspoor. As for Madeline, she did not come down to dinner, having aheadache.

She came down later, however. Albert, alone in the library, wassitting, a book upon his knees and his eyes fixed upon nothing inparticular, when she came in.

"You are thinking again, I see," she said.

He had not heard her enter. Now he rose, the book falling to thefloor.

"Why--why, yes," he stammered. "How are you feeling? How is yourhead?"

"It is no worse. And no better. I have been thinking, too, whichperhaps explains it. Sit down, Albert, please. I want to talkwith you. That is what I have been thinking about, that you and Imust talk."

She seated herself upon the davenport and he pulled forward a chairand sat facing her. For a moment she was silent. When she didspeak, however, her question was very much to the point.

"Why did you say 'No' to Father's offer?" she asked. He had beenexpecting this very question, or one leading up to it. Nevertheless,he found answering difficult. He hesitated, and she watched him,her impatience growing.

"I don't know what to think about you. That is why I feel we musthave this talk. Tell me, please, just what Father said to you thisafternoon."

"He said--well, the substance of what he said was to offer me aposition in his office, in his firm."

"What sort of a position?"

"Well, I--I scarcely know. I was to have a desk there and--and begenerally--ornamental, I suppose. It was not very definite, thedetails of the position, but--"

"The salary was good, wasn't it?"

"Yes; more than good. Much too good for the return I could makefor it, so it seemed to me."

"And your prospects for the future? Wasn't the offer what peoplecall a good opportunity?"

"Why, yes, I suppose it was. For the right sort of man it wouldhave been a wonderful opportunity. Your father was most kind, mostgenerous, Madeline. Please don't think I am not appreciative. Iam, but--"

"Don't. I want to understand it all. He offered you thisopportunity, this partnership in his firm, and you would notaccept it? Why? Don't you like my father?"

He nodded. "I know, Madeline," he said. "You have the right toask. It wasn't so much a question of the offer being worthy of meas of my being worthy the offer. Oh, Madeline, why should you andI pretend? You know why Mr. Fosdick made me that offer. It wasn'tbecause I was likely to be worth ten dollars a year to his firm.In Heaven's name, what use would I be in a stockbroker's office,with my make-up, with my lack of business ability? He would bemaking a place for me there and paying me a high salary for onereason only, and you know what that is. Now don't you?"

She hesitated now, but only for an instant. She colored a little,but she answered bravely.

"I suppose I do," she said, "but what of it? It is not unheard of,is it, the taking one's prospective son-in-law into partnership?"

"No, but-- We're dodging the issue again, Madeline. If I werelikely to be of any help to your father's business, instead of ahindrance, I might perhaps see it differently. As it is, Icouldn't accept unless I were willing to be an object of charity."

"Did you tell Father that?"

"Yes."

"What did he say?"

"He said a good deal. He was frank enough to say that he did notexpect me to be of great assistance to the firm. But I might be ofSOME use--he didn't put it as baldly as that, of course--and at alltimes I could keep on with my writing, with my poetry, you know.The brokerage business should not interfere with my poetry, hesaid; your mother would scalp him if it did that."

She smiled faintly. "That sounds like dad," she commented.

"Yes. Well, we talked and argued for some time on the subject.He asked me what, supposing I did not accept this offer of his,my plans for the future might be. I told him they were prettyunsettled as yet. I meant to write, of course. Not poetryaltogether. I realized, I told him, that I was not a great poet, apoet of genius."

Madeline interrupted. Her eyes flashed.

"Why do you say that?" she demanded. "I have heard you say itbefore. That is, recently. In the old days you were as sure asI that you were a real poet, or should be some day. You neverdoubted it. You used to tell me so and I loved to hear you."

Albert shook his head. "I was sure of so many things then," hesaid. "I must have been an insufferable kid."

She stamped her foot. "It was less than three years ago that yousaid it," she declared. "You are not so frightfully ancientnow. . . . Well, go on, go on. How did it end, the talk withFather, I mean?"

"I told him," he continued, "that I meant to write and to earn myliving by writing. I meant to try magazine work--stories, youknow--and, soon, a novel. He asked if earning enough to support awife on would not be a long job at that time. I said I was afraidit might, but that that seemed to me my particular game,nevertheless."

She interrupted again. "Did it occur to you to question whether ornot that determination of yours was quite fair to me?" she asked.

"Why--why, yes, it did. And I don't know that it IS exactly fairto you. I--"

"Never mind. Go on. Tell me the rest. How did it end?"

"Well, it ended in a sort of flare-up. Mr. Fosdick was just alittle bit sarcastic, and I expressed my feelings rather freely--too freely, I'm afraid."

"Never mind. I want to know what you said."

"To be absolutely truthful, then, this is what I said: I said thatI appreciated his kindness and was grateful for the offer. But mymind was made up. I would not live upon his charity and draw alarge salary for doing nothing except be a little, damned tamehouse-poet led around in leash and exhibited at his wife's clubmeetings. . . . That was about all, I think. We shook hands atthe end. He didn't seem to like me any the less for . . . Why,Madeline, have I offended you? My language was pretty strong, Iknow, but--"

She had bowed her head upon her arms amid the sofa cushions and wascrying. He sprang to his feet and bent over her.

"It is you," she cried. "It is myself. It is everything. It isall wrong. I--I was so happy and--and now I am miserable. Oh--oh,I wish I were dead!"

She threw herself upon the cushions again and wept hysterically.He stood above her, stroking her hair, trying to soothe her, tocomfort her, and all the time he felt like a brute, a heartlessbeast. At last she ceased crying, sat up and wiped her eyes withher handkerchief.

"There!" she exclaimed. "I will not be silly any longer. I won'tbe! I WON'T! . . . Now tell me: Why have you changed so?"

He looked down at her and shook his head. He was conscience-stricken and fully as miserable as she professed to be.

"I don't know," he said. "I am older and--and--and I DON'T seethings as I used to. If that book of mine had appeared three yearsago I have no doubt I should have believed it to be the greatestthing ever printed. Now, when people tell me it is and I read whatthe reviewers said and all that, I--I DON'T believe, I KNOW itisn't great--that is, the most of it isn't. There is some prettygood stuff, of course, but-- You see, I think it wasn't the poemsthemselves that made it sell; I think it was all the fool tommyrotthe papers printed about me, about my being a hero and all thatrubbish, when they thought I was dead, you know. That--"

She interrupted. "Oh, don't!" she cried. "Don't! I don't careabout the old book. I'm not thinking about that. I'm thinkingabout you. YOU aren't the same--the same toward me."

"Toward you, Madeline? I don't understand what you mean."

"Yes, you do. Of course you do. If you were the same as you usedto be, you would let Father help you. We used to talk about thatvery thing and--and you didn't resent it then."

"Didn't I? Well, perhaps I didn't. But I think I remember ourspeaking sometimes of sacrificing everything for each other. Wewere to live in poverty, if necessary, and I was to write, youknow, and--"

"Stop! All that was nonsense, nonsense! you know it."

"Yes, I'm afraid it was."

"You know it was. And if you were as you used to be, if you--"

"Madeline!"

"What? Why did you interrupt me?"

"Because I wanted to ask you a question. Do you think YOU areexactly the same--as you used to be?"

"What do you mean?"

"Haven't YOU changed a little? Are you as sure as you were then--as sure of your feeling toward me?"

She gazed at him, wide-eyed. "WHAT do you mean?"

"I mean ARE you sure? It has seemed to me that perhaps--I was outof your life for a long time, you know, and during a good deal ofthat time it seemed certain that I had gone forever. I am notblaming you, goodness knows, but--Madeline, isn't there-- Well, ifI hadn't come back, mightn't there have been some one--else?"

She turned pale.

"What do--" she stammered, inarticulate. "Why, why--"

"It was Captain Blanchard, wasn't it?"

The color came back to her cheeks with a rush. She blushedfuriously and sprang to her feet.

"How--how can you say such things!" she cried. "What do you mean?How DARE you say Captain Blanchard took advantage of-- How--howDARE you say I was not loyal to you? It is not true. It is nottrue. I was. I am. There hasn't been a word--a word between ussince--since the news came that you were-- I told him--I said--And he has been splendid! Splendid! And now you say-- Oh, whatAM I saying? What SHALL I do?"

She collapsed once more among the cushions. He leaned forward.

"My dear girl--" he began, but she broke in.

"I HAVEN'T been disloyal," she cried. "I have tried-- Oh, I havetried so hard--"

"Yes, dear, yes. But do you think a married life with so muchtrying in it likely to be a happy one? It is better to know itnow, isn't it, a great deal better for both of us? Madeline, I amgoing to my room. I want you to think, to think over all this, andthen we will talk again. I don't blame you. I don't, dear,really. I think I realize everything--all of it. Good night,dear."

He stooped and kissed her. She sobbed, but that was all. The nextmorning a servant came to his room with a parcel and a letter. Theparcel was a tiny one. It was the ring he had given her, in itscase. The letter was short and much blotted. It read:

Dear Albert:

I have thought and thought, as you told me to, and I have concludedthat you were right. It IS best to know it now. Forgive me,please, PLEASE. I feel wicked and horrid and I HATE myself, but Ithink this is best. Oh, do forgive me. Good-by.

MADELINE.

His reply was longer. At its end he wrote:

Of course I forgive you. In the first place there is nothing toforgive. The unforgivable thing would have been the sacrifice ofyour happiness and your future to a dream and a memory. I hope youwill be very happy. I am sure you will be, for Blanchard is, Iknow, a fine fellow. The best of fortune to you both.

The next forenoon he sat once more in the car of the morning trainfor Cape Cod, looking out of the window. He had made the journeyfrom New York by the night boat and had boarded the Cape train atMiddleboro. All the previous day, and in the evening as he trampedthe cold wind-swept deck of the steamer, he had been trying tocollect his thoughts, to readjust them to the new situation, tocomprehend in its entirety the great change that had come in hislife. The vague plans, the happy indefinite dreams, all therainbows and roses had gone, shivered to bits like the reflectionin a broken mirror. Madeline, his Madeline, was his no longer.Nor was he hers. In a way it seemed impossible.

He tried to analyze his feelings. It seemed as if he should havebeen crushed, grief-stricken, broken. He was inclined to reproachhimself because he was not. Of course there was a sadness aboutit, a regret that the wonder of those days of love and youth hadpassed. But the sorrow was not bitter, the regret was but awistful longing, the sweet, lingering fragrance of a memory, thatwas all. Toward her, Madeline, he felt--and it surprised him, too,to find that he felt--not the slightest trace of resentment. Andmore surprising still he felt none toward Blanchard. He had meantwhat he said in his letter, he wished for them both the greatesthappiness.

And--there was no use attempting to shun the fact--his chieffeeling, as he sat there by the car window looking out at thefamiliar landscape, was a great relief, a consciousness of escapefrom what might have been a miserable, crushing mistake for him andfor her. And with this a growing sense of freedom, of buoyancy.It seemed wicked to feel like that. Then it came to him, thethought that Madeline, doubtless, was experiencing the samefeeling. And he did not mind a bit; he hoped she was, bless her!

A youthful cigar "drummer," on his first Down-East trip, sat downbeside him.

"Kind of a flat, bare country, ain't it?" observed the drummer,with a jerk of his head toward the window. "Looks bleak enough tome. Know anything about this neck of the woods, do you?"

Albert turned to look at him.

"Meaning the Cape?" he asked.

"Sure."

"Indeed I do. I know all about it."

"That so! Say, you sound as if you liked it."

Albert turned back to the window again.

"Like it!" he repeated. "I love it." Then he sighed, a sigh ofsatisfaction, and added: "You see, I BELONG here."

His grandparents and Rachel were surprised when he walked into thehouse that noon and announced that he hoped dinner was ready,because he was hungry. But their surprise was more than balancedby their joy. Captain Zelotes demanded to know how long he wasgoing to stay.

"As long as you'll have me, Grandfather," was the answer.

"Eh? Well, that would be a consider'ble spell, if you left it tous, but I cal'late that girl in New York will have somethin' to sayas to time limit, won't she?"

Albert smiled. "I'll tell you about that by and by," he said.

He did not tell them until that evening after supper. It wasFriday evening and Olive was going to prayer-meeting, but shedelayed "putting on her things" to hear the tale. The news thatthe engagement was off and that her grandson was not, after all, towed the daughter of the Honorable Fletcher Fosdick, shocked andgrieved her not a little.

"Oh, dear!" she sighed. "I suppose you know what's best, Albert,and maybe, as you say, you wouldn't have been happy, but I DID feelsort of proud to think my boy was goin' to marry a millionaire'sdaughter."

Captain Zelotes made no comment--then. He asked to be told moreparticulars. Albert described the life at the Fosdick home, thereceptions, his enforced exhibitions and readings. At length therecital reached the point of the interview in Fosdick's office.

"So he offered you to take you into the firm--eh, son?" heobserved.

"Yes, sir."

"Humph! Fosdick, Williamson and Hendricks are one of the biggestbrokerage houses goin', so a good many New Yorkers have told me."

"No doubt. But, Grandfather, you've had some experience with meas a business man; how do you think I would fit into a firm ofstockbrokers?"

Captain Lote's eye twinkled, but he did not answer the question.Instead he asked:

"Just what did you give Fosdick as your reason for not sayin' yes?"

Albert laughed. "Well, Grandfather," he said, "I'll tell you. Isaid that I appreciated his kindness and all that, but that I wouldnot draw a big salary for doing nothing except to be a little,damned tame house-poet led around in leash and shown off at hiswife's club meetings."

Mrs. Snow uttered a faint scream. "Oh, Albert!" she exclaimed.She might have said more, but a shout from her husband preventedher doing so.

Captain Zelotes had risen and his mighty hand descended with astinging slap upon his grandson's shoulder.

"Bully for you, boy!" he cried. Then, turning to Olive, he added,"Mother, I've always kind of cal'lated that you had one man aroundthis house. Now, by the Lord A'Mighty, I know you've got TWO!"

Olive rose. "Well," she declared emphatically, "that may be; butif both those men are goin' to start in swearin' right here in thesittin' room, I think it's high time SOMEBODY in that family wentto church."

So to prayer meeting she went, with Mrs. Ellis as escort, and herhusband and grandson, seated in armchairs before the sitting roomstove, both smoking, talked and talked, of the past and of thefuture--not as man to boy, nor as grandparent to grandson, but forthe first time as equals, without reservations, as man to man.

CHAPTER XVIII

The next morning Albert met old Mr. Kendall. After breakfastCaptain Zelotes had gone, as usual, directly to the office. Hisgrandson, however, had not accompanied him.

"What are you cal'latin' to do this mornin', Al?" inquired thecaptain.

"Oh, I don't know exactly, Grandfather. I'm going to look aboutthe place a bit, write a letter to my publishers, and take a walk,I think. You will probably see me at the office pretty soon. I'lllook in there by and by."

"Ain't goin' to write one or two of those five hundred dollarstories before dinner time, are you?"

Captain Lote shook his head. "Godfreys!" he exclaimed; "it ain'tthe writin' of 'em I'd worry about so much as the gettin' paid for'em. You're sure that editor man ain't crazy, you say?"

"I hope he isn't. He seemed sane enough when I saw him."

"Well, I don't know. It's live and learn, I suppose, but ifanybody but you had told me that magazine folks paid as much asfive hundred dollars a piece for yarns made up out of a feller'shead without a word of truth in 'em, I'd--well, I should have toldthe feller that told me to go to a doctor right off and have HIShead examined. But--well, as 'tis I cal'late I'd better have myown looked at. So long, Al. Come in to the office if you get achance."

He hurried out. Albert walked to the window and watched the sturdyfigure swinging out of the yard. He wondered if, should he live tohis grandfather's age, his step would be as firm and his shouldersas square.

Olive laid a hand on his arm.

"You don't mind his talkin' that way about your writin' thosestories, do you, Albert?" she asked, a trace of anxiety in hertone. "He don't mean it, you know. He don't understand it--sayshe don't himself--but he's awful proud of you, just the same. Why,last night, after you and he had finished talkin' and he came up tobed--and the land knows what time of night or mornin' THAT was--hewoke me out of a sound sleep to tell me about that New Yorkmagazine man givin' you a written order to write six stories forhis magazine at five hundred dollars a piece. Zelotes couldn'tseem to get over it. 'Think of it, Mother,' he kept sayin'.'Think of it! Pretty nigh twice what I pay as good a man as LabeKeeler for keepin' books a whole year. And Al says he ought to doa story every forni't. I used to jaw his head off, tellin' him hewas on the road to starvation and all that. Tut, tut, tut!Mother, I've waited a long time to say it, but it looks as if youmarried a fool.' . . . That's the way he talked, but he's a longways from bein' a fool, your grandfather is, Albert."

Albert nodded. "No one knows that better than I," he said, withemphasis.

"There's one thing," she went on, "that kind of troubled me. Hesaid you was goin' to insist on payin' board here at home. Now youknow this house is yours. And we love to--"

He put his arm about her. "I know it, Grandmother," he broke in,quickly. "But that is all settled. I am going to try to make myown living in my own way. I am going to write and see what I amreally worth. I have my royalty money, you know, most of it, and Ihave this order for the series of stories. I can afford to pay formy keep and I shall. You see, as I told Grandfather last night, Idon't propose to live on his charity any more than on Mr. Fosdick's."

She sighed.

"So Zelotes said," she admitted. "He told me no less than threetimes that you said it. It seemed to tickle him most to death, forsome reason, and that's queer, too, for he's anything but stingy.But there, I suppose you can pay board if you want to, though whoyou'll pay it to is another thing. _I_ shan't take a cent from theonly grandson I've got in the world."

It was while on his stroll down to the village that Albert met Mr.Kendall. The reverend gentleman was plodding along carrying amarket basket from the end of which, beneath a fragment ofnewspaper, the tail and rear third of a huge codfish drooped. Thebasket and its contents must have weighed at least twelve poundsand the old minister was, as Captain Zelotes would have said,making heavy weather of it. Albert went to his assistance.

"How do you do, Mr. Kendall," he said; "I'm afraid that basket israther heavy, isn't it. Mayn't I help you with it?" Then, seeingthat the old gentleman did not recognize him, he added, "I amAlbert Speranza."

Down went the basket and the codfish and Mr. Kendall seized him byboth hands.

"Yes--er--yes, your grandmother, of course. . . . Er . . . er. . . .Did you see my codfish? Isn't it a magnificent one. I am veryfond of codfish and we almost never have it at home. So just now,I happened to be passing Jonathan Howes'--he is the--er--fishdealer,you know, and . . . Jonathan is a very regular attendant at mySunday morning services. He is--is. . . . Dear me. . . . Whatwas I about to say?"

Being switched back to the main track by Albert he explained thathe had seen a number of cod in Mr. Howes' possession and had boughtthis specimen. Howes had lent him the basket.

"And the newspaper," he explained; adding, with triumph, "I shalldine on codfish to-day, I am happy to say." Judging by appearanceshe might dine and sup and breakfast on codfish and still have asupply remaining. Albert insisted on carrying the spoil to theparsonage. He was doing nothing in particular and it would be apleasure, he said. Mr. Kendall protested for the first minute orso but then forgot just what the protest was all about and rambledgarrulously on about affairs in the parish. He had failed in otherfaculties, but his flow of language was still unimpeded. Theyentered the gate of the parsonage. Albert put the basket on theupper step.

"There," he said; "now I must go. Good morning, Mr. Kendall."

"Oh, but you aren't going? You must come in a moment. I want togive you the manuscript of that sermon of mine on the casting downof Baal, that is the one in which I liken the military power ofGermany to the brazen idol which. . . . Just a moment, Albert.The manuscript is in my desk and. . . . Oh, dear me, the door islocked. . . . Helen, Helen!"

He was shaking the door and shouting his daughter's name. Albertwas surprised and not a little disturbed. It had not occurred tohim that Helen could be at home. It is true that before he leftfor New York his grandmother had said that she was planning toreturn home to be with her father, but since then he had heardnothing more concerning her. Neither of his grandparents hadmentioned her name in their letters, nor since his arrival the daybefore had they mentioned it. And Mr. Kendall had not spoken ofher during their walk together. Albert was troubled and takenaback. In one way he would have liked to meet Helen very muchindeed. They had not met since before the war. But he did not,somehow, wish to meet her just then. He did not wish to meetanyone who would speak of Madeline, or ask embarrassing questions.He turned to go.

"Another time, Mr. Kendall," he said. "Good morning."

But he had gone only a few yards when the reverend gentleman wascalling to him to return.

"Albert! Albert!" called Mr. Kendall.

He was obliged to turn back, he could do nothing else, and as hedid so the door opened. It was Helen who opened it and she stoodthere upon the threshold and looked down at him. For a moment, abarely perceptible interval, she looked, then he heard her catchher breath quickly and saw her put one hand upon the door jamb asif for support. The next, and she was running down the steps, herhands outstretched and the light of welcome in her eyes.

"Why, Albert Speranza!" she cried. "Why, ALBERT!"

He seized her hands. "Helen!" he cried, and added involuntarily,"My, but it's good to see you again!"

She laughed and so did he. All his embarrassment was gone. Theywere like two children, like the boy and girl who had known eachother in the old days.

"And when did you get here?" she asked. "And what do you mean bysurprising us like this? I saw your grandfather yesterday morningand he didn't say a word about your coming."

"He didn't know I was coming. I didn't know it myself until theday before. And when did you come? Your father didn't tell me youwere here. I didn't know until I heard him call your name."

He was calling it again. Calling it and demanding attention forhis precious codfish.

"Yes, Father, yes, in a minute, " she said. Then to Albert, "Comein. Oh, of course you'll come in."

"Why, yes, if I won't be interfering with the housekeeping."

"You won't. Yes, Father, yes, I'm coming. Mercy, where did youget such a wonderful fish? Come in, Albert. As soon as I getFather's treasure safe in the hands of Maria I'll be back. Fatherwill keep you company. No, pardon me, I am afraid he won't, he'sgone to the kitchen already. And I shall have to go, too, for justa minute. I'll hurry."

She hastened to the kitchen, whither Mr. Kendall, tugging the fishbasket, had preceded her. Albert entered the little sitting-roomand sat down in a chair by the window. The room looked just as itused to look, just as neat, just as homelike, just as well kept.And when she came back and they began to talk, it seemed to himthat she, too, was just as she used to be. She was a trifle lessgirlish, more womanly perhaps, but she was just as good to look at,just as bright and cheerful and in her conversation she had thesame quietly certain way of dealing directly with the common-senserealities and not the fuss and feathers. It seemed to him that shehad not changed at all, that she herself was one of the realities,the wholesome home realities, like Captain Zelotes and Olive andthe old house they lived in. He told her so. She laughed.

"You make me feel as ancient as the pyramids," she said.

He shook his head. "I am the ancient," he declared. "This warhasn't changed you a particle, Helen, but it has handed me an awfuljolt. At times I feel as if I must have sailed with Noah. And asif I had wasted most of the time since."

She smiled. "Just what do you mean by that?" she asked.

"I mean--well, I don't know exactly what I do mean, I guess. Iseem to have an unsettled feeling. I'm not satisfied with myself.And as I remember myself," he added, with a shrug, "that conditionof mind was not usual with me."

She regarded him for a moment without speaking, with the appraisinglook in her eyes which he remembered so well, which had alwaysreminded him of the look in his grandfather's eyes, and which whena boy he resented so strongly.

"Yes," she said slowly, "I think you have changed. Not becauseyou say you feel so much older or because you are uneasy anddissatisfied. So many of the men I talked with at the camphospital, the men who had been over there and had been wounded, asyou were, said they felt the same way. That doesn't mean anything,I think, except that it is dreadfully hard to get readjusted againand settle down to everyday things. But it seems to me that youhave changed in other ways. You are a little thinner, but broader,too, aren't you? And you do look older, especially about the eyes.And, of course--well, of course I think I do miss a little of theAlbert Speranza I used to know, the young chap with the chip on hisshoulder for all creation to knock off."

"Young jackass!"

"Oh, no indeed. He had his good points. But there! we're wastingtime and we have so much to talk about. You--why, what am Ithinking of! I have neglected the most important thing in theworld. And you have just returned from New York, too. Tell me,how is Madeline Fosdick?"

"She is well. But tell me about yourself. You have been in allsorts of war work, haven't you. Tell me about it."

"Oh, my work didn't amount to much. At first I 'Red Crossed' inBoston, then I went to Devens and spent a long time in the camphospital there."

"Pretty trying, wasn't it?"

"Why--yes, some of it was. When the 'flu' epidemic was raging andthe poor fellows were having such a dreadful time it was badenough. After that I was sent to Eastview. In the hospital thereI met the boys who had been wounded on the other side and whotalked about old age and dissatisfaction and uneasiness, just asyou do. But MY work doesn't count. You are the person to betalked about. Since I have seen you you have become a famous poetand a hero and--"

"Don't!"

She had been smiling; now she was very serious.

"Forgive me, Albert," she said. "We have been joking, you and I,but there was a time when we--when your friends did not joke. Oh,Albert, if you could have seen the Snow place as I saw it then. Itwas as if all the hope and joy and everything worth while had beencrushed out of it. Your grandmother, poor little woman, was braveand quiet, but we all knew she was trying to keep up for CaptainZelotes' sake. And he--Albert, you can scarcely imagine how thenews of your death changed him. . . . Ah! well, it was a hardtime, a dreadful time for--for every one."

She paused and he, turning to look at her, saw that there weretears in her eyes. He knew of her affection for his grandparentsand theirs for her. Before he could speak she was smiling again.

"But now that is all over, isn't it?" she said. "And the Snows arethe happiest people in the country, I do believe. AND the proudest,of course. So now you must tell me all about it, about yourexperiences, and about your war cross, and about your literarywork--oh, about everything."

The all-inclusive narrative was not destined to get very far. OldMr. Kendall came hurrying in, the sermon on the casting down ofBaal in his hand. Thereafter he led, guided, and to a large extentmonopolized the conversation. His discourse had proceeded perhapsas far as "Thirdly" when Albert, looking at his watch, wassurprised to find it almost dinner time. Mr. Kendall, stilltalking, departed to his study to hunt for another sermon. Theyoung people said good-by in his absence.

"It has been awfully good to see you again, Helen," declaredAlbert. "But I told you that in the beginning, didn't I? Youseem like--well, like a part of home, you know. And home meanssomething to me nowadays."

"I'm glad to hear you speak of South Harniss as home. Of course Iknow you don't mean to make it a permanent home--I imagine Madelinewould have something to say about that--but it is nice to have youspeak as if the old town meant something to you."

He looked about him.

"I love the place," he said simply.

"I am glad. So do I; but then I have lived here all my life. Thenext time we talk I want to know more about your plans for thefuture--yours and Madeline's, I mean. How proud she must be ofyou."

He looked up at her; she was standing upon the upper step and he onthe walk below.

"Madeline and I--" he began. Then he stopped. What was the use?He did not want to talk about it. He waved his hand and turnedaway.

After dinner he went out into the kitchen to talk to Mrs. Ellis,who was washing dishes. She was doing it as she did all her shareof the housework, with an energy and capability which would havedelighted the soul of a "scientific management" expert. Exceptwhen under the spell of a sympathetic attack Rachel was everdistinctly on the job.

And of course she was, as always, glad to see her protege, herRobert Penfold. The proprietary interest which she had always feltin him was more than ever hers now. Had not she been the soleperson to hint at the possibility of his being alive, when everyone else had given him up for dead? Had not she been the only oneto suggest that he might have been taken prisoner? Had SHE everdespaired of seeing him again--on this earth and in the flesh?Indeed, she had not; at least, she had never admitted it, if shehad. So then, hadn't she a RIGHT to feel that she owned a share inhim? No one ventured to dispute that right.

She turned and smiled over one ample shoulder when he entered thekitchen.

"Hello," she hailed cheerfully. "Come callin', have you, Robert--Albert, I mean? It would have been a great help to me if you'dbeen christened Robert. I call you that so much to myself it comesalmost more natural than the other. On account of you bein' sojust like Robert Penfold in the book, you know," she added.

"Yes, yes, of course, Rachel, I understand," put in Albert hastily.He was not in the mood to listen to a dissertation on a text takenfrom Foul Play. He looked about the room and sighed happily.

"There isn't a speck anywhere, is there?" he observed. "It is justas it used to be, just as I used to think of it when I was laid upover there. When I wanted to try and eat a bit, so as to keep whatstrength I had, I would think about this kitchen of yours, Rachel.It didn't do to think of the places where the prison stuff wascooked. They were not--appetizing."

Mrs. Ellis nodded. "I presume likely not," she observed. "Well,don't tell me about 'em. I've just scrubbed this kitchen from stemto stern. If I heard about those prison places, I'd feel likestartin' right in and scrubbin' it all over again, I know Ishould. . . . Dirty pigs! I wish I had the scourin' of some ofthose Germans! I'd--I don't know as I wouldn't skin 'em alive."

Albert laughed. "Some of them pretty nearly deserved it," he said.

Rachel smiled grimly. "Well, let's talk about nice things," shesaid. "Oh, Issy Price was here this forenoon; Cap'n Lote sent himover from the office on an errand, and he said he saw you and Mr.Kendall goin' down street together just as he was comin' along. Hehollered at you, but you didn't hear him. 'Cordin' to Issachar'stell, you was luggin' a basket with Jonah's whale in it, orsomethin' like that."

Albert described his encounter with the minister. Rachel was muchinterested.

"Oh, so you saw Helen," she said. "Well, I guess she was surprisedto see you."

"Not more than I was to see her. I didn't know she was in town.Not a soul had mentioned it--you nor Grandfather nor Grandmother."

The housekeeper answered without turning her head. "Guess we hadso many things to talk about we forgot it," she said. "Yes, she'sbeen here over a week now. High time, from what I hear. The poorold parson has failed consider'ble and Maria Price's housekeepin'and cookin' is enough to make a well man sick--or wish he was. Buthe'll be looked after now. Helen will look after him. She's themost capable girl there is in Ostable County. Did she tell youabout what she done in the Red Cross and the hospitals?"

"She said something about it, not very much."

"Um-hm. She wouldn't, bein' Helen Kendall. But the Red Crossfolks said enough, and they're sayin' it yet. Why--"

She went on to tell of Helen's work in the Red Cross depots and inthe camp, and hospitals. It was an inspiring story.

"There they was," said Rachel, "the poor things, just boys most of'em, dyin' of that dreadful influenza like rats, as you might say.And, of course it's dreadful catchin', and a good many was moreafraid of it than they would have been of bullets, enough sight.But Helen Kendall wa'n't afraid--no, siree! Why--"

And so on. Albert listened, hearing most of it, but losing some ashis thoughts wandered back to the Helen he had known as a boy andthe Helen he had met that forenoon. Her face, as she had welcomedhim at the parsonage door--it was surprising how clearly it showedbefore his mind's eye. He had thought at first that she had notchanged in appearance. That was not quite true--she had changed alittle, but it was merely the fulfillment of a promise, that wasall. Her eyes, her smile above a hospital bed--he could imaginewhat they must have seemed like to a lonely, homesick boy wrestlingwith the "flu."

"And, don't talk!" he heard the housekeeper say, as he drifted outof his reverie, "if she wa'n't popular around that hospital, aroundboth hospitals, fur's that goes! The patients idolized her, andthe other nurses they loved her, and the doctors--"

"Did they love her, too?" Albert asked, with a smile, as shehesitated.

She laughed. "Some of 'em did, I cal'late," she answered. "Yousee, I got most of my news about it all from Bessie Ryder,Cornelius Ryder's niece, lives up on the road to the Center; youused to know her, Albert. Bessie was nursin' in that samehospital, the one Helen was at first. 'Cordin' to her, there wassome doctor or officer tryin' to shine up to Helen most of thetime. When she was at Eastview, so Bessie heard, there was a realbig-bug in the Army, a sort of Admiral or Commodore amongst thedoctors he was, and HE was trottin' after her, or would have beenif she'd let him. 'Course you have to make some allowances forBessie--she wouldn't be a Ryder if she didn't take so many words tosay so little that the truth gets stretched pretty thin afore shefinished--but there must have been SOMETHIN' in it. And all abouther bein' such a wonderful nurse and doin' so much for the RedCross I KNOW is true. . . . Eh? Did you say anything, Albert?"

Albert shook his head. "No, Rachel," he replied. "I didn'tspeak."

"I thought I heard you or somebody say somethin'. I-- Why, LabanKeeler, what are you doin' away from your desk this time in theafternoon?"

Laban grinned as he entered the kitchen.

"Did I hear you say you thought you heard somebody sayin' somethin',Rachel?" he inquired. "That's queer, ain't it? Seemed to me _I_heard somebody sayin' somethin' as I come up the path just now.Seemed as if they was sayin' it right here in the kitchen, too.'Twasn't your voice, Albert, and it couldn't have been Rachel's,'cause she NEVER talks--'specially to you. It's too bad, theprejudice she's got against you, Albert," he added, with a wink."Um-hm, too bad--yes, 'tis--yes, yes."

Mrs. Ellis sniffed.

"And that's what the newspapers in war time used to call--er--er--oh, dear, what was it?--camel--seems's if 'twas somethin' about acamel--"

"Camouflage?" suggested Albert.

"That's it. All that talk about me is just camouflage to save himanswerin' my question. But he's goin' to answer it. What are youdoin' away from the office this time in the afternoon, I want toknow?"

Mr. Keeler perched his small figure on the corner of the kitchentable.

"Well, to tell you the truth, Rachel," he said solemnly. "I'm hereto do what the folks in books call demand an explanation. You andI, Rachel, are just as good as engaged to be married, ain't we?I've been keepin' company with you for the last twenty, forty orsixty years, some such spell as that. Now, just as I'm gettin'used to it and beginnin' to consider it a settled arrangement, asyou may say, I come into this house and find you shut up in thekitchen with another man. Now, what--"

"Another man," he repeated. "And SOME folks--not many, of course,but some--might be crazy enough to say he was a better-lookin' manthan I am. Now, bein' ragin' jealous,-- All right, Rachel, allright, I surrender. Don't hit me with all those soapsuds. I don'twant to go back to the office foamin' at the mouth. The reason I'mhere is that I had to go down street to see about the sheathin' forthe Red Men's lodge room. Issy took the order, but he wasn't realsure whether 'twas sheathin' or scantlin' they wanted, so I toldCap'n Lote I'd run down myself and straighten it out. On the wayback I saw you two through the window and I thought I'd drop in andworry you. So here I am."

Mrs. Ellis nodded. "Yes," she sniffed. "And all that camel--camel-- Oh, DEAR, what DOES ail me? All that camel-- No use,I've forgot it again."

"Never mind, Rachel," said Mr. Keeler consolingly. "All the--er--menagerie was just that and nothin' more. Oh, by the way, Al," headded, "speakin' of camels--don't you think I've done pretty wellto go so long without any--er--liquid nourishment? Not a dropsince you and I enlisted together. . . . Oh, she knows about itnow," he added, with a jerk of his head in the housekeeper'sdirection. "I felt 'twas fairly safe and settled, so I told her.I told her. Yes, yes, yes. Um-hm, so I did."

Albert turned to the lady.

"You should be very proud of him, Rachel," he said seriously. "Ithink I realize a little something of the fight he has made, and itis bully. You should be proud of him."

Rachel looked down at the little man.

"I am," she said quietly. "I guess likely he knows it."

Laban smiled. "The folks in Washington are doin' their best tohelp me out," he said. "They're goin' to take the stuff away fromeverybody so's to make sure _I_ don't get any more. They'llprobably put up a monument to me for startin' the thing; don't youthink they will, Al? Eh? Don't you, now?"

Albert and he walked up the road together. Laban told a littlemore of his battle with John Barleycorn.

"I had half a dozen spells when I had to set my teeth, those I'vegot left, and hang on," he said. "And the hangin'-on wa'n't aseasy as stickin' to fly-paper, neither. Honest, though, I thinkthe hardest was when the news came that you was alive, Al. I--Ijust wanted to start in and celebrate. Wanted to whoop her up, Idid." He paused a moment and then added, "I tried whoopin' onsass'parilla and vanilla sody, but 'twa'n't satisfactory. Couldn'tseem to raise a real loud whisper, let alone a whoop. No, Icouldn't--no, no."

Albert laughed and laid a hand on his shoulder. "You're all right,Labe," he declared. "I know you, and I say so."

Laban slowly shook his head. His smile, as he answered, was ratherpathetic.

"I'm a long, long ways from bein' all right, Al," he said. "A longways from that, I am. If I'd made my fight thirty year ago, Imight have been nigher to amountin' to somethin'. . . . Oh, well,for Rachel's sake I'm glad I've made it now. She's stuck to mewhen everybody would have praised her for chuckin' me to Tophet. Iwas readin' one of Thackeray's books t'other night--Henry Esmond,'twas; you've read it, Al, of course; I was readin' it t'othernight for the ninety-ninth time or thereabouts, and I run acrossthe place where it says it's strange what a man can do and a womanstill keep thinkin' he's an angel. That's true, too, Al. Not,"with the return of the slight smile, "that Rachel ever went so faras to call me an angel. No, no. There's limits where you can'tstretch her common-sense any farther. Callin' me an angel would bejust past the limit. Yes, yes, yes. I guess SO."

They spoke of Captain Zelotes and Olive and of their grief anddiscouragement when the news of Albert's supposed death reachedthem.

"Do you know," said Labe, "I believe Helen Kendall's comin' therefor a week did 'em more good than anything else. She got away fromher soldier nursin' somehow--must have been able to pull thestrings consider'ble harder'n the average to do it--and just camedown to the Snow place and sort of took charge along with Rachel.Course she didn't live there, her father thought she was visitin'him, I guess likely, but she was with Cap'n Lote and Olive most ofthe time. Rachel says she never made a fuss, you understand, justwas there and helped and was quiet and soft-spoken and capable and--and comfortin', that's about the word, I guess. Rachel alwaysthought a sight of Helen afore that, but since then she swears byher."

That evening--or, rather, that night, for they did not leave thesitting room until after twelve--Mrs. Snow heard her grandsonwalking the floor of his room, and called to ask if he was sick.

The exercise was, as a matter of fact, almost entirely mental, thepacing up and down merely an unconscious physical accompaniment.Albert Speranza was indulging in introspection. He was reviewingand assorting his thoughts and his impulses and trying to determinejust what they were and why they were and whither they weretending. It was a mental and spiritual picking to pieces and theresult was humiliating and in its turn resulted in a brand-newdetermination.

Ever since his meeting with Helen, a meeting which had been quiteunpremeditated, he had thought of but little except her. Duringhis talk with her in the parsonage sitting room he had been--therewas no use pretending to himself that it was otherwise--morecontented with the world, more optimistic, happier, than he hadbeen for months, it seemed to him for years. Even while he wasspeaking to her of his uneasiness and dissatisfaction he was dimlyconscious that at that moment he was less uneasy and lessdissatisfied, conscious that the solid ground was beneath his feetat last, that here was the haven after the storm, here was--

He pulled up sharply. This line of thought was silly, dangerous,wicked. What did it mean? Three days before, only three days, hehad left Madeline Fosdick, the girl whom he had worshiped, adored,and who had loved him. Yes, there was no use pretending there,either; he and Madeline HAD loved each other. Of course herealized now that their love had nothing permanently substantialabout it. It was the romance of youth, a dream which they hadshared together and from which, fortunately for both, they hadawakened in time. And of course he realized, too, that theawakening had begun long, long before the actual parting tookplace. But nevertheless only three days had elapsed since thatparting, and now-- What sort of a man was he?

Was he like his father? Was it what Captain Zelotes used to callthe "Portygee streak" which was now cropping out? The opera singerhad been of the butterfly type--in his later years a middle-agedbutterfly whose wings creaked somewhat--but decidedly a flitterfrom flower to flower. As a boy, Albert had been aware, in anuncertain fashion, of his father's fondness for the sex. Now,older, his judgment of his parent was not as lenient, was clearer,more discerning. He understood now. Was his own "Portygeestreak," his inherited temperament, responsible for his leaving onegirl on a Tuesday and on Friday finding his thoughts concerned sodeeply with another?

Well, no matter, no matter. One thing was certain--Helen shouldnever know of that feeling. He would crush it down, he would usehis common-sense. He would be a decent man and not a blackguard.For he had had his chance and had tossed it away. What would shethink of him now if he came to her after Madeline had thrown himover--that is what Mrs. Fosdick would say, would take pains thatevery one else should say, that Madeline had thrown him over--whatwould Helen think of him if he came to her with a second-hand lovelike that?

And of course she would not think of him as a lover at all. Whyshould she? In the boy and girl days she had refused to let himspeak of such a thing. She was his friend, a glorious, a wonderfulfriend, but that was all, all she ever dreamed of being.

Well, that was right; that was as it should be. He should bethankful for such a friend. He was, of course. And he wouldconcentrate all his energies upon his work, upon his writing.That was it, that was it. Good, it was settled!